Thursday, 19 July 2007

Memo belongs in my personal album since the days in which we were both ten years old. This is not him anymore, this is what he looked like in 1975, when he was all suave, sweet talking his way into all the girl's dormitories, whilst getting his degree in Architecture. Nowadays he is a grandfather, and he is still trying to sweet talk his way, albeit with much, much less success than thirty years ago.

In 1975 I went back to Cali for the first time after two years in Toronto, in the company of Margaret Thurlow, who was teaching me photography at the time.
The very next day while walking in the downtown area, trying to get my memories in place, I ran into one of my dearest friends on planet Earth, the writer Hernán Toro. We had one of the street photographers in Puente Ortiz take a picture of us in the company of Margaret. Hernán still lives in Cali where he teaches literature at Universidad del Valle.
The photographers in the bridge and the adjacent park disappeared many years ago.

My friend, the painter Ever Astudillo, came to see me in San Francisco in 1992 and I got this shot of him at the Haight-Ashbury Street Fair of that year. He seems to be paying homage to the street artist that painted this anonymous face.

This is El Diablito, one of the most accomplished street thieves in my neighborhood in Cali. He seems to be spying into a room that I used in one of my trips south, on one of those days in which I slept with my camera under my pillow.

This image of a long gone time shows my father and sister, and myself, during the forgotten year of 1969. It was after high school and there was nothing else to do, except to get a passport. But before that could happen I had to secure the obligatory military certificate, hence this picture, taken by an ambulatory photographer, such as I myself would become a few years later. My mother used to bring me delicious home-cooked meals and fruit juices, which were the only respite during days filled with mindless drills and military discipline.

I found this beautiful edifice in a corner in Cadiz and couldn't help but think that it was an ancient vessel run aground.
Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. But that is the way I felt that afternoon, anyway...

This trio represents a great chunk of my life. Sahara, when she was a few months old in toronto (1981), and her mother Laura Paull. They are smiling and proud and looking all beautiful the summer that my brother Beto flew in from Colombia to meet my daughter. Beto, unfortunately is no longer with us, but he still lives in our hearts.

Imagine my surprise when I turned my head towards my left side whilst sitting in front row of graduation ceremonies, in Vassar College, and I found the great American photographer sitting next to me.
What do you do? Well, just what any self-respecting photographer would do in a case like that. Ask the colleague if it is OK to take her portrait. Which she very graciously obliged.

This young boy was gliding towards the camera as if he was on roller skates. The streets were full of sounds and smoke; full-on afternoon sun and the ever-present tum-tum of drums modulated by trombones and trumpets. There were bongoceros and dope smokers dominating the ambience. Not a single incident, it was all peaceful and full of fun. It was the summer of seventy seven.